Flash Fiction
Grief and Its Trappings
Tears welled in her eyes but she was determined to force them back in. Her throat closed and she felt she could never speak coherently again. She can’t put her finger on why she despairs.
Is it over how slighted and insignificant she feels? Another relationship bites the dust. Another rejection. Another possibility, crushed.
Most likely, it’s her broken heart and her troubles– enmeshed in a tangled, unruly jumble that is her life.
Maybe she didn’t try hard enough. Maybe she tried too hard. Maybe she didn’t explain herself properly. Maybe she said too much. She’s drowning in doubt and can’t think straight. Did she act desperate? Did she act stupid? Was she inadequate? If so, why?
Oh, how she wishes these intrusive, self-sabotaging thoughts would leave her alone…What was it that drove him away??
It doesn’t matter. And yet, she can’t forget about it. Because it’s a recurring phenomenon and she has had enough of it. Is it her? How much more must she bend and twist herself to fit inside someone’s box, anyone’s box, to truly belong? Or maybe that kind of thinking is the source of all her troubles.
Just be yourself, they say. One should love and accept oneself as is! Don’t look for validation from others!
Lilah listened to them once. Her self-love and ambition flowed through her veins until she didn’t have room for anyone else. She bought into all the bells and whistles of that sort.
But was she happy? No! If anything, she’s better off now.
It goes without saying that grief never goes away. It changes form and strength, perhaps. It starts out as a huge, powerful mass and dwindles down over time. But it stays and doesn’t budge, permanently blackening a part of one’s heart and soul, dampening the fire, and owning a piece of a person!
Her default emotion is anger. Layers of sadness, buried deep within, swell and surface at the most unwanted moments. Anxiety threatens to get the better of her. Her fingers tremble and she stammers. The words don’t come out as she meant them.
Would others ever look upon her and see her as she is? Or would she always be a victim of projections, objectification, and the consequences of her own self-imposed silence that is essentially a cage of her own making? She’s tied up and gagged, trapped in her body, suspended in space, doomed to endure a life she has little to no control over anymore.
She stands there in her cramped bedroom, barely able to process the familiar surroundings that she so carefully decorated herself. What is she? Who is she? Does she know and understand herself? And even if she knows herself, will anyone else, ever? Can she make anyone see her?
The darkness inside increasingly blocks out any vestige of light from the outside like poison seeping through her system. Her warmth and wholesomeness are overtaken and defeated by her cold, lonely emptiness. When she finds the one, won’t it be too late?
